My writing's like a journey. I'll know some of the stops ahead of time, and I'll make some of those stops and some of them I won't. Some will be a moot point by the time I get there. You know every script will have four to six basic scenes that you're going to do. It's all the scenes where your characters really come from.

I was kind of excited about going to jail the first time and I learnt some great dialogue.

I'm very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I've never really considered myself a writer.

All my movies are achingly personal.

One thing I don't understand is that average American movie-goers cannot watch a movie for three hours, yet they'll watch a stupid, boring, horrific football game for four hours. Now, that is boredom at its most colossal.

Suddenly, Westerns, which were our action films and what the working man went to see to blow off steam and have a good time, became boring to most people growing up from the Eighties on, because they're kind of pastoral.

I don't believe in elitism. I don't think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience.